Saudi Arabia Is Giving a Blogger 1,000 Lashes for Insulting Islam

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The internet lit up in support of the freedom of French caricaturists to lambast religion, but that outpouring did help Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who received the first 50 of his 1,000-lash sentence on Friday in the coastal city of Jeddah. Badawi was accused of cybercrimes and apostasy in 2012, for allegedly insulting Islam through his online writing. He was cleared of the apostasy charge (which carries an automatic death sentence in the country), but still sentenced to the physical punishment, ten years in prison, and a $265,000 fine. Reports say that Badawi stood silently as his punishment was carried out in public, as it will beweekly.